Concrete Demands

Rhonda Y. Williams is Associate Professor of History at Case Western Reserve University. She is the author of The Politics of Public Housing: Black Women's Struggles Against Urban Inequality, and co-editor of Teaching the American Civil Rights Movement: Freedom's Bittersweet Song (Routledge).

• IntroductionPart OneChapter 1: A Mad Society: Crucibles and Portents of Black PowerChapter 2: From “Negro Power” Toward Black RevoltChapter 3: The Time Is Arriving NowPart TwoChapter 4: Into the Public’s EyeChapter 5: Girding Up Urban Power StrugglesChapter 6:  The World Cries FREEDOMChapter 7: Revolution for Whom?: Unraveling Romantic Black UnityEpilogue: EchoesBibliography

"Concrete Demands is a tour de force. Rhonda Y. Williams's panoramic study of Black Power in the 20th century offers a comprehensive and insightful history of the way in which one of the most controversial social movements of the 1960s transformed American democracy and race relations. In doing so it stands out as one of the most important books ever written on the era."—Peniel E. Joseph, author of Dark Days, Bright Nights: From Black Power to Barack Obama"Rhonda Williams is a brilliant historian whose work wrestles with and illuminates the ongoing struggle for Black liberation and the practice of grassroots organizing. With great skill and unrelenting passion, Concrete Demands offers new and important insights into our understanding of the Black Power movement of the late twentieth century and its implications for the intellectual and political challenges of the 21st century."—Barbara Ransby, author of Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision"Williams traces the origins and diverse manifestations of black power thought and activism from the early to the late 20th century, demonstrating that core tenets such as black self-determination, economic justice, and armed self-defense had precedents in the Jim Crow era that influenced a younger generation of activists who popularized these ideas in the 1960s...An intriguing and valuable synthesis that will interest both academic and general audiences. Summing Up: Highly recommended."—G. E. de Jong, University of Nevada, Reno, CHOICE Review